General Question

Are Reed's Ginger Chews kosher?

I wan to get some for my young cousin for Hanukkah, and that branch of the family is Orthodox. It doesn’t say if they’re kosher on the Reed’s website, just that the ingredients are diced baby ginger root and sugar cane – but I suspect the presence of gelatin, which would need to be kosher. I also called the number for the company but can’t get a real person on the phone. Can you help me, fluther, or will I need to wait for their email back to my query?

9 Answers

It is really tough to buy candy for orthodox people. I once bought a box of Jelly Bellys for an orthodox family because it said kosher all over the package, but they said they couldn’t eat them for some reason or another. (something along the lines of that it wasn’t “blessed” by the right rabbi.)

You could try going to a jewish grocery store or getting them for the family and playing dumb.

They can’t not list an ingredient. Sometimes ingredients are hidden in alternate names or vague terms like “natural flavours,” but you can’t just leave off an ingredient entirely. So if ginger root and sugar cane are all that’s listed under “ingredients,” that’s all that’s in there.

@nicobanks Well, I figured on the gelatin because it’s obvious they use some sort of thickening agent. On the site Harp linked to, it says that thickener is tapioca starch. So I guess they did leave off an ingredient, which I also find odd.

And now I am confused because the people at the company emailed me back and said that they are not certified kosher. Hm. Maybe I’ll just ask my cousin’s parents what they think – they would have the final word about the matter in any case.

@wildpotato Wow, I don’t get that. Are you sure you’re looking at the ingredients list, specifically, and not just some other part of the label?

Anyway, if the product contains no meat or dairy products, it won’t be certified “kosher” because that word applies to products that contain meat or dairy: it will be “parve” instead (sometimes spelled differently), which means it’s safe to eat with any food (or on its own for that matter).